Why the YA dystopia fad launched, soared, crashed, and burned

Note: This essay on the Hunger Games phenomenon and the rise and fall of YA dystopias was initially printed in 2021. It has been up to date and republished as a result of the 2023 launch of the prequel film The Hunger Games: Songbirds & Snakes..

The 2010s noticed the speedy rise and equally speedy fall of the YA dystopian style, with The Hunger Games and its followers dominating headlines and well-liked tradition. It’s been argued that the dystopia growth was impressed by cynicism and nervousness in the wake of the 9/11 assaults, however for these of us who turned youngsters in the YA dystopia-obsession period, the movies particularly served a distinct operate: They cultivated a mistrust for the authorities, expressing and amplifying how millennials round the world have been bored with tyrannical leaders.

The Hunger Games particularly helped popularize what had already turn into a thriving literary subgenre, with books from Lois Lowry’s 1993 novel The Giver to Scott Westerfeld’s Uglies sequence shaping the dystopian growth. And then the wave of Hunger Games copycats oversaturated the market and killed the fad — or so the well-liked story goes. Author Suzanne Collins calls again to it along with her novel and now film The Hunger Games: Songbirds & Snakes, however she’s unlikely to revive the subgenre, even when the film seems to be a success. There are good causes the YA dystopia growth ended, and they have been constructed into its premises and execution all alongside.

The depth of the fad actually contributed to its finish. In 2014 alone, 4 would-be blockbuster YA dystopian movies hit theaters: The Hunger Games Mockingjay — Part 1, The Maze Runner, Divergent, and The Giver. But saturation isn’t sufficient to kill a style, as the final decade’s rolling wave of recent superhero movies proves. The YA dystopian style died as a result of it didn’t evolve. Book after e book and movie after movie laid out the similar tropes, with the similar varieties of characters all struggling the similar generic oppression and experiencing the similar teen love triangles. The Hunger Games struck a chord due to its lurid themes and the manner it intensified its period’s anxieties about capitalism, imperialism, wealth and energy inequality, and know-how, however its followers largely added extra gimmicks and totally different sorts of violence, and referred to as it a day.

Photo: Lionsgate

The Hunger Games emerged from comparable adults-vs.-youth tales like Battle Royale, however added new layers about media propaganda and the authoritarian construction. Suzanne Collins was impressed by Greek mythology, reality-TV programming, and little one troopers, and she used these concepts to provide her books extra texture. Her protagonist, Katniss Everdeen, is relatable and right down to earth: She doesn’t need to turn into a revolutionary or a hero, she simply needs to maintain her little sister Primrose secure. Her deteriorating psychological well being feels reasonable, and it was principally unprecedented in a style stuffed with daring teen heroes who got here by way of the most horrifying adventures fully unscathed.

Following the Hunger Games sequence, subsequent YA dystopia movies weren’t as richly realized, and the creators didn’t appear to care about the traumatic experiences their younger protagonists went by way of. It’s unrealistic to have a movie about youngsters overthrowing tyrants however little to no concentrate on their feelings. Katniss wasn’t endlessly stoic — Collins permits her to be weak, and to study that emotions are an indication of power moderately than a weak point. Many of the smash-the-state dystopia tales that adopted averted that sort of concentrate on emotions — or simply adopted the Katniss sample of hysteria and anguish, with out discovering new territory to discover.

The Hunger Games sequence focuses on ending a brutal regime that executes kids for sport, which requires a revolution and a whole restructuring of society. But the tales at all times stopped proper after the newest oppressive regime fell, as if that will resolve all of society’s issues. While precise youngsters have been battling their very own idealism and a want for a greater world, fiction was telling them that systematic oppression is straightforward and simply solved with a normal good-vs.-evil combat, and that nothing that comes after that combat is attention-grabbing or related. The tales of how these dystopic societies have been rebuilt could be extra novel and attractive, however there was by no means room in YA dystopias for that sort of thought or consideration.

Which left nowhere for these tales to go after the injustices have been overturned and the fascist villains have been defeated. They all constructed momentum and pleasure round motion, however few of those tales ever thought of what young-adult readers need to know: After one merciless chief is gone, what comes subsequent? Injustice hardly ever ends with the dying or departure of 1 unjust ruler, however YA dystopian tales hardly ever contemplate the subsequent world order, and the way it might function in a different way, with out stigmatizing its folks. Revolution, post-apocalyptic survival, and restructuring society are fascinating subjects, however other than the Hunger Games’ temporary coda about Katniss’ future PTSD, most YA dystopia tales simply don’t discover these areas.

Photo: Twentieth Century Fox

And simply as YA dystopian tales weren’t significantly thinking about the future, additionally they have been hardly ever that thinking about their pasts, and even their current. They nearly by no means explored their societies in any depth, past declaring them to be evil, violent, and controlling. We don’t actually know a lot about the damaging regimes in the Maze Runner or Divergent sequence — we simply know they’re dangerous. The run of dystopian motion pictures particularly solely supplied the quickest, shallowest rationalization of why a authorities would pressure its kids into mazes, or make them kill one another. The Capitol’s need to terrorize its residents in The Hunger Games, or The Maze Runner’s concentrate on inhabitants management and catastrophe response — these are political excuses for mass homicide, however not nuanced ones.

At the similar time, YA dystopian tales have been at all times too depending on the hero mannequin, the place a single teenager sparks a revolt and does the bulk of the work in taking down a totalitarian state. Although that’s an empowering imaginative and prescient, it appears like a dated, hole mannequin to the younger adults participating in precise collective motion. We’re arguably residing in dystopian occasions, amid a altering world the place authoritarianism and fascism are on the rise, each in America and round the world. And resistance to it must be cooperative, not depending on Chosen One heroes. Inequality and oppression are pushed by establishments, not single villains who might simply be introduced down. The simplicity of tales the place one courageous younger individual stops a monster and revolutionizes a society rapidly began to really feel like simplistic fantasy.

Part of the manner these dystopian fantasies averted actuality was by avoiding the actual and relatable points that youngsters face. Katniss, Divergent’s Tris, and Maze Runner’s Thomas are all youngsters, however their tales’ major concession to their ages are the minor love triangles they face. Their tales discover points round know-how, environmental destruction, and authorities management, however with out, for example, explicitly drawing parallels between the revolutionary methods youngsters use know-how, or work together with the training techniques designed to form them. Teenagers expertise a plethora of feelings as we develop up, however these dystopian movies hardly ever felt genuine about teen angst or anxieties — their heroes felt identical to generic grownup heroes, performed by youthful actors.

Of course, non-white folks barely exist in the dystopia-film wave. The few BIPOC characters are by no means totally developed, and the viewers by no means will get to study their tales. Studies spotlight that white characters are much better represented in YA literature than different teams, which can assist clarify the manner some followers have been weirdly bothered by Black characters in the Hunger Games motion pictures — in such a white-leaning style, they not solely didn’t count on anything, they couldn’t deal with it when it arrived.

Photo: Lionsgate

These dystopias counsel that they happen in some form of post-racial utopia, however they get there by suggesting non-white folks wouldn’t exist in a dystopian society. Despite Jennifer Lawrence and Shailene Woodley dominating the style with messages of feminine empowerment, they nonetheless dwell in fantasy worlds that amplify some real-world points, like authorities overreach and profound inequality, however that hardly tackle the different actual points going through ladies and teen ladies, like gender discrimination and harassment. Pretending none of this stuff would exist in dystopian society, after we know from actual expertise that oppressive regimes truly considerably compound the situation, feels shallow and false.

But who is aware of, as the march in opposition to new fascist regimes continues, the style could revive in a brand new type. Trends come and go, however they are typically cyclical — and the second or third time round, they’re extra prone to have advanced. As the variety wave spreads by way of totally different cinematic and literary genres, from fantasy to romance to sci-fi and past, the YA dystopia style might revive in new types. With the rise of extra BIPOC creatives in the trade, possibly we’ll get a particular YA dystopian movie with extra characters of shade.

Not everyone needs to dwell in or think about a dystopian society. The dystopian fad could have pale partially as a result of younger readers and viewers are prepared for some positivity, and for much less fantastical, simplified issues and options. But it could even be that they’re doing the work themselves now. Young persons are mounting extra and extra refined political campaigns in opposition to the real-world dystopic futures they’re going through, from the local weather disaster and the revival of authoritarian governments to nation-specific issues like sectarian violence, wars, white nationalism, and terrorist assaults. Eventually, it is perhaps doable for authors to take inspiration from that actuality, and revive the style in additional convincing and compelling types.